Military Historian Rick Atkinson Wins $50,000 History Prize

This combination photo shows the cover of "The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777," left, and a portrait of author Rick Atkinson. (Holt, left, and Elliott O'Donovan via AP)

18 Mar 2020

The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Military historian Rick Atkinson has won a $50,000 prize for his first of three planned volumes on the Revolutionary War.

The New-York Historical Society announced Tuesday that Atkinson had received the Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize for “The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777.” Pam Schafler, chair of the society's board of trustees, called the book “riveting, illuminating and wonderfully provocative.”

Atkinson is also known for his “Liberation Trilogy” on World War II. He won a Pulitzer Prize for the first volume, “An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943.”

Previous winners of the Zalaznick prize include Robert Caro, Jill Lepore and Ron Chernow.